


Talking is Silver

by Nathea_Rayne



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: capkink, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Prompt Fill, everytime I try to write funny stuff it ends up kinda serious, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 11:04:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nathea_Rayne/pseuds/Nathea_Rayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You said that voicing opinions is a good thing. So. My opinion is that you’re hot as fuck and I wanna do all sorts of things to you. Deal with it.”</i><br/>-<br/>The Winter Soldier didn't need any social filters, so why should Bucky have them? Steve... deals with it. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talking is Silver

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://capkink.dreamwidth.org/1349.html?thread=228933#cmt228933) capkink prompt:
>
>>   
>  _"Bucky still hasn't gotten used to social norms. So whenever something dirty about Steve pops into his mind he casually tells Steve about it. This means that Bucky will just tell Steve everything he wants to do to him in front of the Avengers like it's no big deal."_   
> 

The first time it happens, Steve is sure he must have dozed off for a second where he’s sprawled comfortably across the couch in his – no, _their_ apartment in Avengers Tower, because no way – _no way_ – did Bucky just tell him how much he’d like to suck his dick right now.

He snaps his eyes open and gapes at his best friend, who doesn’t even look up from the TV where they’ve been watching a Star Wars marathon for the past three hours, or stop mechanically shoving popcorn in his mouth with his metal hand.  
  
Yeah, definitely dozed off for a second.

* * *

The second time, it’s harder to ignore because he’s wide-awake when it happens. They are both wide-awake. They are also talking to a bunch of people who are wide-awake. More specifically, journalists. During a live-broadcasted press conference.  
  
It’s Bucky’s first contact with the media since… well. Since. Yesterday was a Bad Day (those deserve the capital letters) and Steve offered him to do the conference alone or ask Sam to jump in, but Bucky’s nothing if not stubborn, so he’s sitting next to him now, smiling his way through the journalists’ questions. They are innocent enough – Pepper has only invited people they can trust, so they can ease Bucky into the whole media business as gently as possible. He’s holding his ground so far, but Steve, who is sitting next to him, can feel him getting twitchier by the minute, and he finds himself glancing at his watch every few seconds.  
  
“Sergeant Barnes,” one reporter says right when Steve notices that Bucky’s metal hand is clenched into a fist under the table, “can you give us any specific information about the superhuman enhancements you and Captain Rogers have been injected with, and the differences between the two versions of the serum?”  
  
Steve turns around to give Pepper a sign to end the conference, but before he can do it, he feels Bucky relax next to him. His hand finds its way onto the table and suddenly his smile doesn’t seem forced anymore.  
  
“Well,” he drawls, and that’s when Steve knows he’s doomed. “There are the obvious enhancements. Strength. Speed. Fast healing. But it’s more than that, especially with Steve’s serum. It has enhanced his tactical thinking. Stamina.” At that word Steve starts to sweat. He places a hand on Bucky’s knee to stop him from saying anything inappropriate on National TV, but his friend doesn’t even pause. “In general, you can say that Steve’s serum is more powerful than the one I got. He’s got everything I have, only more of it. Which gets me thinking, you know.” There’s a dirty grin in his face now and Steve leans back in his chair, closing his eyes and resigning to his fate. Bucky pats him on the shoulder with his metal hand. “About the stamina part. My stamina is pretty good these days; if yours is even better, you must have a lot of fun at night. Come to think of it, I wonder if _everything_ you got is bigger and better than mine. Someone should test that sometime. Hell, _I_ should test that.”

Steve opens one eye. Bucky is openly leering at him now, while the reporters are staring at the two of them, stunned into a silence only interrupted by the sounds of a dozen cameras snapping pictures. He closes the eye again and tries to ignore the way his cheeks are burning, while Pepper hastily declares the press conference over.  
  
(Pepper has a field day. A screenshot of a blushing Steve goes viral within an hour, sparking a meme called ‘Sexually Overwhelmed Steve Rogers.’ Clint prints out one of them, frames it and hangs it on a wall in the Avengers' common room. The next morning, there are a few very interesting headlines in the papers – Steve buys them all and stashes them underneath his mattress. One day, they are going to pull them out and laugh about it.)

* * *

The thing is, the Winter Soldier had no need for social filters. He was an assassin, not a spy – his missions were carried out swiftly with brutal efficiency, mostly with sniper rifles from a safe distance. Sometimes he’d have to stage accidents or get close enough to his target to stab them with a knife, but he never interacted with people outside of Hydra like a normal human being. He never needed to blend in, instead hiding in the shadows and waiting for the right moment to strike. A ghost doesn’t need to know how to make small talk. Social norms were never a priority, and for all that Bucky has broken his programming, his filters don’t seem to have come back yet.  
  
Steve understands that, he really does, and what an awful friend would he be if he held this against Bucky? So he quickly learns how to deal with the moments when Bucky seems to forget that there are things you’re not supposed to talk about in public. He doesn’t mind, as long as they are alone.  
  
Unfortunately, Bucky isn’t any more self-conscious around the other Avengers. Bearing the press conference incident in mind, Steve probably should have anticipated that.  
  
Sam is the one who is lounging around on their couch eating pizza one evening when Bucky comes out of the bathroom after one of his notoriously long hot showers.  
  
“Why don’t you just move in there already?” he quips, “You already spend most of your time in the shower, so it would just be the most convenient thing to do.”  
  
Bucky doesn’t even hesitate before he tells him, “Yeah, that’s 'cause I keep thinking of Steve, and then things get out of hand. Or, you know, in my hand. And when I say ‘things’, I mean my dick.” He turns to Steve and looks at him very seriously. “I mean, I think about jerking you off.”  
  
“Okay,” Steve says, slightly overwhelmed by the mental image. Bucky smiles at him, turns around, and disappears into his bedroom.  
  
Sam seems to have inhaled a bite of his pizza, because one moment he stops breathing and the next he’s suddenly coughing and spluttering. Steve helpfully pats him on the back. “Do you think that’s some sort of... coping mechanism?” he asks when his friend has recovered.

“Nah man,” Sam answers, wiping tears out of the corners of his eyes, “I think that’s just weird."

* * *

By the time Bucky tells Natasha about “that thing with the tongue” that he read about on the internet and would really like to try out (“With Steve. Like, right now.”), Steve is almost used to it – and so is everybody else in Avengers Tower, it seems, judging by the way Bruce doesn’t even look up from where he’s brooding over the blueprints of an alien weapon that dropped out of the sky three days ago.

Natasha writes a few websites down on a piece of paper and with a completely straight face slides it over the table to Bucky. “For research purposes,” she says.  
  
Bucky spends a lot more time on the internet for the next few days. Steve doesn’t need to ask him what he found, because he tells him anyway.

* * *

“Bananas are gross now,” Bucky says.  
  
They’ve had the banana conversation before and Steve turns around to agree once more, but he freezes before he can say a word. There is no trace of the usual blank look on Bucky’s face that’s still there on most days, when Bucky forgets that he's allowed to show emotions now. No, his friend is looking straight at him and there is something… predatory, almost animalistic in his eyes as he slowly slides the banana into his mouth. His jaw moves suspiciously like he’s swirling his tongue around the head – the tip, _the tip_ of the banana, before he pulls it halfway out and pushes inside once more. He doesn’t eat it. He’s sucking on it.  
  
Steve feels the blood rushing out of his face into southern regions, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the sight.  
  
Bucky releases the banana out of his mouth with a wet plop. “I still like them.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he adds, “I like to imagine it’s your cock I’m sucking.”  
  
He doesn’t even grin at him, just turns back to reading the paper (this time actually _eating_ the banana), as if he just told him they were out of cereal.  
  
Steve goes to take a cold shower. He’s been taking a lot of those lately.

* * *

They spar every Tuesday and Friday, and Bucky is still holding back.  
  
“You know you could easily throw him if you’d just try, right?” Clint asks from where he's perched on a ceiling beam in what's probably a safe distance with a bottle of coke in his hand.  
  
“Oh, I’d throw him alright,” Bucky responds and, just in case there was any doubt, he adds, “On my bed. Possibly over the kitchen counter.”  
  
Clint doesn’t even choke on his drink, that’s how used they all are to Bucky’s post-sparring hormones by now. Steve, on the other hand, can feel his cheeks going red. It doesn’t exactly help that he’s still straddling Bucky’s hips (and _fuck_ , that’s the moment he chooses to shift minutely) and has his hands pinned to the mat above his head.  
  
“You know, so I’d have better access to your – ”  
  
Steve cuts him off hastily. “He’s right, you know?” He swings one leg over Bucky’s body and flops down on the mat beside him, subtly readjusting his pants. “You’re being more careful than you need to be with me.”  
  
The smug grin vanishes from Bucky’s face as he sits up and frowns at him. “We’ve talked about this,” he says. “Not against you.” _Not again._ He doesn’t need to say the words, they are hanging in the air between them anyway. “Besides,” he adds, craning his neck to where Clint is watching them, “Steve isn’t giving me everything either. I won’t fight him in earnest until I can be sure he’s doing the same.”  
  
“Now there’s a fight I’d like to see.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I don’t.” Steve says, and for a moment Bucky looks so utterly miserable that he wishes he could take the words back. Before he can apologize, Bucky’s on his feet again.  
  
“I’m gonna take a shower,” he says, holding out his metal hand to help Steve up. “You’re welcome to join me. For a different sort of fight. One where you _could_ give me everything… and I’d take it all.”  
  
Steve stares at him for what’s probably too long to count as a an ordinary eye contact between friends. “Yeah,” he says. “ _No._ I mean – no. Thanks.” He only lets go of his hand when Bucky’s lips curl into a slight grin.  
  
“Shame,” he says, climbing out of the ring and swaggering towards the showers.  
  
Steve very determinedly does not look at Clint.

* * *

Tony changes the ringtone on Steve’s phone to ‘Let’s Talk About Sex’ by Salt ’n’ Pepa. He thinks it’s hilarious. So does Bucky.  
  
Steve doesn’t change it back, because it puts a smile on Bucky’s face every time his phone rings. If that means he has to endure the disbelieving looks of Nick Fury and the likes when his phone rings during mission briefings (the Avengers suddenly call him _a lot_ during important meetings), then so be it.  
  
It’s worth it.

* * *

“How long do you think it’ll take him to figure it out?”  
  
“Steve?” Natasha doesn’t even look up from her laptop. “Never.”  
  
“Oh come on, give the guy some credit. He’s a bit oblivious sometimes, but he’s not an idiot.” Clint flops down on the chair across from her with a challenging look in his eyes. “Two more months. That’s all it’s gonna take.”  
  
“Oh really,” she says with a slight quirk to her mouth.  
  
“I bet you fifty bucks. If he hasn’t figured it out a year from now, you win.”  
  
Natasha glances at her watch. “Deal.”

* * *

Steve is not a blushing virgin and he’s certainly not a prude. He’s a grown man, he fought in World War II and he has heard it all (well, maybe not _everything_ ; those first few months on the internet in the 21st century certainly were an eye-opener).  
  
But.  
  
He has his limits. He just got back from a mission gone bad where they lost two agents, and he Really Does Not have the patience to deal with Bucky’s antics right now.  
  
So this time he doesn’t smile when Bucky tells him about how his uniform is ripped in all the right places and he’d gladly help him peel the rest of it off his skin because he looks like he needs a bit of fun tonight, “or you know what? Just leave it on, I don’t mind. Fucking Captain America is right at the top of my bucket list.” He doesn’t just turn around to go take a shower either, because this has got to _stop._  
  
“ _Bucky,_ ” he hisses, “just shut up already.”  
  
“Make me,” Bucky challenges and he wiggles his eyebrows exaggeratedly because he’s joking, of course he is, except he’s not (was he ever?), and before Steve fully realizes what is happening, the adrenaline has beaten every shred of reason in his mind into submission. He surges forward, fists his hands in Bucky’s shirt and kisses him. Hard.  
  
As far as first kisses go, this one is awful – he doesn’t even hit Bucky’s mouth spot-on on the first try, and then his teeth are in the way and it’s messy and angry and what the hell is he even doing? It’s so damn unromantic that he just _knows_ Bucky is going to tease him mercilessly about it later, but then he’s laughing into the kiss, they both are, and this, _this_ is the best feeling in the world and Steve doesn’t care.  
  
Bucky pulls back, growling “About damn time,” and shoves him backwards onto the sofa, straddles his lap and oh, well, yeah, Steve is totally up to exploring some more really good feelings.

* * *

(They try that thing with the tongue three days later.

Steve bakes some cupcakes for Natasha the next morning. She doesn’t ask him what they’re for, just gives him one of her tiny smug smiles.)

* * *

Regularly acting upon Bucky’s fantasies doesn’t change a thing, not behind closed doors, not in front of the other Avengers, not in public.  
  
They are out buying furniture for their new flat in Brooklyn – Avengers Tower is nice and all, but one of them is going to lose their mind if they’re cooped up with the rest of their family of misfits for much longer – and Bucky couldn’t be less interested. Even months after he has come back home, Steve still pushes him to make his own decisions whenever he can, but some days it’s easier to fall back into old patterns of obedience and orders, just do what he’s told to do without taking any responsibilities. Today is one of those days, and Steve’s plan to break through to Bucky by taking him to this store hasn’t been successful so far. He ends up picking most of the furniture himself, with Bucky occasionally shrugging or nodding beside him.  
  
By the time the sales clerk has led them to the dining room area, Steve has pretty much stopped caring about tables and chairs and bookshelves. He just wants to take Bucky home, shove him into the shower and hope that he comes back acting like himself again.  
  
“This is one of our nicest models,” the woman says with a toothy smile, standing in front of a modern rectangular glass table. “I highly recommend this piece; it would match the cupboards you picked for your kitchen excellently.”  
  
“What do you think?” he asks Bucky, who is standing right behind him and hasn’t said a word since they entered the store.  
  
He doesn’t really expect an answer – at this point he’s asking more out of habit and common courtesy – but Bucky says without missing a beat, “I think I’d like to bend you over that table and fuck you until you scream my name.”  
  
Steve feels his cheeks heat up instantly, while the sales clerk makes a choking sound before suggesting another model with a reinforced wooden table top that is “more stable” and “holds much more weight.”  
  
Bucky is suddenly a lot more interested in buying new furniture.  
  
(They end up buying the wooden table.)

* * *

  
Their _thing_ has been going on for a few months when Steve decides to sit Bucky down on the couch in their newly furnished apartment and talk to him about social filters. “Look, Bucky,” he starts, “there are certain rules – “  
  
“Rules,” Bucky replies flatly and Steve mentally kicks himself because he knows that this word is enough to make him weary of whatever is going to follow.  
  
“Well, they’re not exactly _rules_ , more like social conventions.” His friend – boyfriend? – just looks at him expectantly as if he’s waiting for him to elaborate, so he does. “You don’t _have_ to follow them if you don’t want to, but it’s kinda... expected. It makes people uncomfortable when you don’t.” Bucky doesn’t make a sound or a move to indicate that he understood what he’s talking about, and Steve takes a deep breath. “Look. I’m... _flattered_ to hear the, uh, nice things you think about me” – more like slightly mortified and _really_ turned on – “but you’re not supposed to publicly announce these thoughts.”  
  
Bucky blinks. “Why not?”  
  
“Well, they’re... private. Intimate. They only belong to you. And me, sometimes.”  
  
Bucky seems to consider this for a moment, then he asks, “Do they hurt anyone?”  
  
“Well, no. Apart from that time we were in Avengers Tower and Tony fell down the stairs because he heard you say that... uh...”  
  
“I’ve always wanted you to fuck me against a window and those glass fronts would be the perfect place to do it.”  
  
Steve swallowed. “Yeah. That was it.”  
  
“So, nobody but Stark gets hurt, right? And by the way, that was his own fault for eavesdropping.”  
  
“Yeah. No. I guess.”  
  
“You told me I’m my own person now and I can say and do anything I want as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.”  
  
“Of course you can, but – “  
  
“You said that voicing opinions is a good thing. So. My opinion is that you’re hot as fuck and I wanna do all sorts of things to you. Deal with it.”  
  
He turns away, and it’s clear from the set of his shoulders that the conversation is over and Steve isn’t going to get a more satisfying answer.  
  
So he deals with it.

* * *

  
It’s not easy. There are still more Bad Nights than good ones and there are days when Bucky locks himself inside their bedroom or sits on the couch for hours, staring at the wall with this blank look that scares the hell out of Steve because what if one day he doesn’t snap back into the present? They fight a lot, because that’s what happens when two people as stubborn as they are find themselves in a relationship with each other. Bucky keeps forgetting that Steve isn’t the tiny, fragile person he once was, and Steve keeps forgetting that after everything Bucky has been through he won’t break him with a few thoughtless words. They are too careful around each other, and then, when the tension breaks, they are too harsh, shouting and pushing at each other until they’re both numb and worn out.  
  
But they make it work, because the good days are amazing and when they’re not fighting they work together like two parts of the same brain, on the battlefield as well as behind closed doors.  
  
And honestly?  
  
Steve loves Bucky. He has loved him since he was fourteen years old, scrawny and sick and always looking up to him. He loved him when they were poor and starving, building pillow forts with couch cushions to forget about the world outside for a few hours. He loved him during the war, when Bucky had to become the gun to accompany Steve’s shield. He didn’t stop loving him after the train or after Steve woke up in the 21st century or when Hydra turned him into a weapon, and he’s certainly not about to stop loving him now.  
  
Bucky never says it, but he knows he does too. It’s in his eyes, in the way he smiles at him when he thinks Steve isn’t paying attention, even in the way he chews him out and calls him a “stupid fucking punk” after one of his many reckless fighting manoeuvres on a mission.  
  
No matter what life threw at them to separate them, they always found their way back to each other, where they belong, and that’s how it will always be.  
  
No, it’s not easy, but if there’s one thing Steve has learned in his life, it’s that love isn’t supposed to be easy.  
  
But it’s worth it.

* * *

  
The Winter Soldier has no need for social filters. It does not matter to him what other people think of him.  
  
Bucky Barnes, on the other hand, just really likes to make Steve blush.

* * *

  
(Nine months, twelve days, eight hours and thirty-four minutes later, Clint grudgingly hands over 50$ to a smirking Natasha, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “Super Soldier, more like Super Idiot.”)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Come join me on [tumblr](http://nathearayne.tumblr.com), if you want. :)


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